Banco Santander S.A.

The Madrid-based Banco Santander is one of the largest banks in the
world. It has nearly 171,000 employees, more than 14,000 branches
and 90 million customers. In 2008, it made €8.9 billion in profits,
making it one of the five most profitable banks in the world. It
also won several awards during the year. Euromoney named Santander the
Best Bank in the World in 2008, marking the second time in four
years the bank won this prize. The magazine also named Santander
the Best Bank in the United Kingdom, Best Regional Bank in Latin
America, Best Bank in Project Finance in Latin America, and Best
Bank in several other countries (including Spain, Portugal, Chile
and Argentina).

In terms of geographic presence, Santander's global business is
divided into three main areas: Continental Europe, which
encompasses all of the group's retail banking, asset management,
insurance, and wholesale banking businesses in Europe; the United
Kingdom, where the bank is the third largest in the country after
doubling retail outlet presence in 2008; and Latin America, where
the bank is the largest financial institution, conducting business
through subsidiaries and affiliated banks in Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. In 2008, Banco
Santander expanded its presence in North America, with the purchase
of Sovereign Bank, a large retail bank in the northeast U.S. with
about 750 branch offices.

The bank's operations are focused on retail banking, wholesale
banking, asset management, insurance and private banking. In
addition, the banking group has key business practices in
investment banking, investment and pension funds, corporate
banking, treasury and capital markets. The banking group boasts of
a global customer base of 90 million customers.

More than 150 years of
banking

Santander's history began on 15 May 1857, when then reigning Queen
Isabel II signed a royal decree that authorised the incorporation
of the founding of the bank. Spain's presence (and colonisation) in
Latin American was culminating at the time, and from its beginning,
Santander was linked to trade between its namesake port (Santander
in the north of Spain) and the fast-growing trade and industry of
Latin America.

Santander spent the first half of the 20th century buying up scores
of Spanish banks, and not only did it survive the Spanish Civil War
and the two World Wars, the bank actually grew at an accelerated
pace throughout all of Europe's instability. In the 10 years
between 1900 and 1919, Santander doubled the scale of its balance
sheet and made heads turn when its earning power topped that of the
average among the country's finance houses in 1917. Between 1919
and 1939 (the year the Spanish Civil War ended), Santander
experienced what the group describes as a crucial point in its
evolution, beginning with a move into the famous neoclassical
building Paseo de Pereda in Santander, then developing a network of
branches both within and beyond the province.

In 1934, Emilio Botín Sanz de Sautuola y López was appointed
managing director of Santander bank, and in 1950, he was appointed
chairman. After that, he led an impressive expansion (including a
further series of acquisitions) of the bank throughout the country,
which continued for two decades. Santander's first regional office
in the Americas was opened in Havana in 1947. Offices in Argentina,
Mexico and Venezuela followed, and in 1956, Santander formally
established a Latin American department.

When Santander celebrated its 100th birthday in 1957, it was the
seventh-largest finance house in Spain. During the late 1980s, it
expanded in European, beginning with the acquisition of CC-Bank in
Germany and the purchase of a stake in a Portuguese bank (through
which it formed an alliance with the Royal Bank of Scotland).
Santander's historical 1994 acquisition of rival firm Banesto is
what, finally, after 137 years in business, made it the No. 1 bank
in Spain. Major flurries of Latin American and Continental European
expansion followed in the years since then. In 2004, Santander
relocated its operating headquarters from central Madrid to a
purpose-built complex in Boadilla del Monte, on the outskirts of
the city.

The millennium chug

When Spanish banking giants Santander and Banco Central Hispano
merged right before the turn of the millennium, the deal marked the
first massive banking consolidation of the new century-and perhaps
foreshadowed the mergers and acquisitions that would unfold over
the next decade. While Santander's business focus has traditionally
been in Latin America, the banking group made headlines in 2004
when it paid €12.5 billion for Britain's then-debt-ridden and
financially suffering Abbey Bank. At the time, the deal was the
biggest ever cross-border purchase of a European retail bank. After
Santander implemented a cost-cutting plan and revenue initiatives,
the group reported net profits for Abbey in 2007 of €1.2
billion-not a bad turnaround for a once-struggling high street
retail bank. The Abbey acquisition in 2004 made the Spanish banking
giant the No. 1 bank in the Eurozone by market capitalisation-a
position it still maintained in 2007.

Going Dutch

The most highly publicized of Santander's shopping sprees was its
October 2007 purchase of iconic Dutch banking giant ABN Amro.
Santander was part of a buying consortium made up of now-fallen
Belgian banking giant Fortis and the Royal Bank of Scotland. As a
result of the long-drawn out acquisition-which triggered a
prime-time bidding war; Britain's Barclays Group was a key
contender for the Dutch banking group as well-Santander ended up
landing the South American prize it had been eyeing up all along.
Further strengthening its already tight grip on South American's
banking sector, Santander picked up ABN Amro's Brazilian banking
business, Banco Real, making the Spanish banking giant one of the
top three banks in Brazil. A month after Santander signed on the
Brazilian bank, while it was on a dealmaking roll, Santander also
famously acquired Italian bank Antonveneta, and then turned around
and sold it to the Italian bank Monte dei Paschi, earning a
whopping €2.3 billion profit in the deal.

At the end of 2007, while the world's financial industry began
feeling the pain of the US subprime crisis and looming global
financial crisis kicking in, Santander posted net profits of
â'¬9.06 billion, making it the fifth-largest bank in the world by
profit.